The Guide to Infant Formulas: Part 3. Enfamil products

There certainly are a lot of choices when it comes to infant formula, aren’t there? Last time we saw all of the colorful ones offered by Abbot. Let’s see what else it out there.

The other big manufacturer of infant formulas is Mead-Johnson, with their Enfamil line. Enfa, I guess like enfant, which I think is a baby elephant; -mil meaning, I don’t know what. I couldn’t find anything about where that name comes from on their site. What I did find, unlike Abbot’s Similac site, are lots of photos of cute babies.

Enfamil introduced a new twist: staging different formulas for different-aged babies. They claim that human breast milk varies as a baby grows, which is true; and they claim that their newborn-oriented product has a protein mix that more-closely matches that of moms who are nursing newborns (as opposed to older babies). The catch here is that there’s a lot of variability among women. That ratio of the protein mix varies quite a bit, and isn’t really the same among women; when it starts to change is variable, too. Plus, there’s no actual clinical evidence that somehow more-closely matching the whey-casein ratio makes any difference, especially because it can’t be matched individually to each mom. But in any case, that’s the shtick, and that’s what makes the Enfamil line at least a little unique.

Enfamil’s flagship product for littler babies is “Enfamil Newborn”, which of course has a similar blend of DHA and prebiotics as everyone else. They also say it has a “tailored” level of vitamin D for its target age – 0 to 3 months – though the AAP recommends the same 400 IU/day for babies of all ages.

Moving past of their newborn-specific formula, the next “flagship” product is Enfamil PREMIUM Infant (that’s their capitals, not mine.) This is product says it’s tailored for babies 0-12 months, which overlaps their other product tailored differently for 0-3 months, but perhaps they used a different tailor. In any case, Enfamil Infant (I’m not typing PREMIUM every time) is a fine cow’s-milk based formula for babies. It’s got all of the stuff we’ve been talking about.

Enfamil, of course, can’t just stop there. They’ve got a product with partially hydrolyzed proteins (similar to Good Start and Similac Total Comfort) called “Enfamil Gentlease”. That’s named maybe after the word “Gentle”, or less-likely the word “Lease”. Though I like the name, as I’ve said before there’s no clinical evidence that these partially hydrolyzed formulas are an improvement, but they’re certainly nutritionally equivalent to ordinary formulas.

Enfamil has a spit-up formula, similar to Similac for Spit Up, called EnfamilAR. I can’t tell if AR means “added rice” or “anti-reflux,” but they claim it reduces spit up by “over 50%”. That sounds suspiciously like the 54% that Similac for Spit Up claimed, though the number is less specific. Advice for Enfamil people: use exact numbers, they look more “sciency.” In any case, Sim for Spit Up and EnfAR seem about the same in every important way.

Enfamil’s soy-based product is Enfamil ProSobee, and their extensively hydrolyzed product is Nutramigen. There’s very limited need for these. They also have a formula for preemies, and a whole host of metabolic and other formulas for specific medical needs that are very rarely needed—but kudos to them for developing and selling them. For babies that need special formulas, Mead-Johnson has come through.

So: Mead-Johnson’s Enfamil line has your basic milk and soy and hydrolysate formulas, plus a slightly-different-in-an-unimportant-way Newborn formula, plus a few bonus versions. We’ll call it 6 formulas, plus the 7 from the Similac line. Are thirteen enough choices already? Of course not! Next up: the “minor” company and the generics.

Our hospital gave us Enfamil Newborn as did our pediatrician’s office. When we went to a different hospital for treatment of jaundice, he had Similac. Our son has acid reflux, but the AR formula constipated him. Our pedi had us change to Enfamil Premium + oatmeal in his bottle. It helped.